On this Christmas Eve and in this Holiday Season– please consider contributing to a worthwhile cause!

Michael, thank you for your years of effort – you have made a huge difference to hundreds (thousands?) of us individually, and have changed the system. I wish I had 45K to fund you. I discovered the Disrupted Physician in April and have read every post and link. It has given me hope and strength as I work to recover and rebuild my life. -Kathryn Neraas M.D.

Michael, I have witnessed your efforts for 2-3 years now and I completely understand what you’re trying to do. Your work is so important. I have been doing similar work and wish I could donate enough to keep you able to do this as long as it takes until this is resolved completely. Talking to brick walls is expensive. Something needs to give.–Tom Gleason

Please Donate to a worthwhile cause–I want to continue helping medical students and others in need but I need urgent funding: We need to work for reform and advocacy. We need to create a “counterpower”for due process and fairness and prevent coercion and abuse.. I am counting on you to please contribute what you can no matter what amount. Anything would help!

There is a very urgent need for a “counterpower” to state physician health programs (PHPs). On average five or six medical students, doctors or residents contact me each week. They are usually afraid and many do not trust anyone in the system after what they have been through. They have lost their locus of control. Many feel hopeless, helpless and defeated. I have received many wonderful letters thanking me for this blog and giving them support and guidance in maneuvering this system. I want to be able to continue to do so and hope I can rely on your donation.

In terms of reform it is critical to create some type of due process or redress for putative impaired medical students (as well as physicians) who are the objects of state PHP therapeutic interventions. Currently there is no counterpower to PHP control. No outside agency exists that can both investigate compliants and punish for wrongdoing. We need to form an advocacy group or intervention review organization with the goal of ensuring the veracity of both the claims against them and the purported diagnosis. We also need to make certain that individual rights were not circumvented in the name of “help.”

Although it is difficult to stand up to “authority” it is essential that we do so. Every voice counts and collectively we can change this system.

In the past year we have made some tremendous gains. Pauline Anderson’s Physician Health Programs: More Harm Than Good?opened the door to exposing the financial exploitation and abuse of doctors by PHPs and their preferred drug and alcohol testing and treatment facilities. This was the first mainstream medical new article to address the problems with PHPs. They have no oversight or accountability. The FSPHP rebuttal to Medscape Medical News was dismissive and did not meaningfully answer any of the specific concerns. Logical fallacy and half-truths were presented but the direct and substantive questions remain unanswered. Ever siince BMJ Editor Jeanne Lenzer’s “Physician health programs under fire” was published in the BMJ there has been nothing but silence.

Multiple articles are in the works including an expose in a major news source to the general public. This will be a first!

Please help me continue to help others and continue to fight for reform. I am losing ground very quickly and may not be able to continue after the New Year if I do not get some relief. Please help me to ensure I can continue to do so–Michael Langan, M.D.